“More than five-and-twenty, ma’am!” replied Venetia, a rather mischievous twinkle in her eye.

“Five-and-twenty!” Lady Steeple seemed for a moment to shrink, and did actually put up her hand as though to thrust something ugly away. “Five-and-twenty!” she repeated, glancing instinctively at the mirror with searching, narrowed eyes. What she saw seemed to reassure her, for she said lightly: “Oh, impossible! I was the merest child when you were born, of course! But what in the world have you been doing with yourself to be left positively on the shelf?”

“Nothing whatsoever, ma’am,” said Venetia, smiling at her. “You see, until I came to London a month ago, I had never seen a larger town than York, nor been farther from Undershaw than Harrogate!”

“Good God, you can’t be serious?” cried Lady Steeple, staring at her. “I never heard of anything so appalling in my life! Tell me!”

Venetia did tell her, and although the thought of Sir Francis as a recluse made her break into her delicious laugh she really was horrified by the story, and exclaimed at the end of it: “Oh, you poor little thing! Do you hate me for it?”

“No, of course I don’t!” replied Venetia reassuringly.

“You see, I never wished for children!” explained her ladyship. “They quite ruin one’s figure, and when one is in the straw one looks positively hideous, and they look hideous, too, all red and crumpled, though I must say you and Conway were very pretty babies. But my last—what did Francis insist on naming him? Oh, Aubrey, wasn’t it, after one of his stupid ancestors? Yes, Aubrey! Well, he looked like a sick monkey—horrid! Of course Francis thought it was my duty to nurse him myself, as though I had been a farm-wench! I can’t think how he came by such a vulgar notion, for I do know that old Lady Lanyon always hired a wet-nurse! But it didn’t answer, for it made me perfectly ill to look at such a wizened creature. Besides, he was so fretful that it made me nervous. I never thought he would survive, but he did, didn’t he?”

Within the shelter of her muff Venetia’s hands clenched till the nails dug into her palms, but she answered coolly: “Oh, yes! Perhaps he was fretful because of his hip. He had a diseased joint, you see. It is better now, but he suffered a great deal when he was younger, and he will always limp.”

“Poor boy!” said her ladyship compassionately. “Did he come with you to London?”

“No, he is in Yorkshire. I don’t think he would care for London. In fact, he cares for nothing much but his books. He’s a scholar—a brilliant scholar!”

“Good gracious, what a horrid bore!” remarked Lady Steeple, with simple sincerity. “To think of being shut up with a recluse and a scholar makes me feel quite low! You poor child! Oh, you were the Sleeping Beauty! What a touching thing! But there should have been a Prince Charming to kiss you awake! It is too bad!”

“There was,” said Venetia. She flushed faintly. “Only he has it fixed in his head that he isn’t a Prince, but a usurper, dressed in the Prince’s clothes.”

Lady Steeple was rather amused. “Oh, but that spoils the story!” she protested. “Besides, why should he think himself a usurper? It is not at all likely!”

“No, but you know what that Prince in the fairy tale is like, ma’am! Young, and handsome, and virtuous! And probably a dead bore,” she added thoughtfully. “Well, my usurper is not very young, and not handsome, and certainly not virtuous: quite the reverse, in fact. On the other hand, he is not a bore.”

“You have clearly fallen in love with a rake! But how intriguing! Tell me all about him!”

“I think perhaps you know him, ma’am.”

“Oh, no, do I? Who is he?”

“He is Damerel,” replied Venetia.

Lady Steeple jumped. “What? Nonsense! Oh, you’re shamming it! You must be!” She broke off, knitting her brows. “I remember now—they have a place there, haven’t they? The Damerels—only they were hardly ever there. So you have met him—and of course he came round you— and you lost your heart to him, devil that he is! Well, my dear, I daresay he has broken a score of hearts besides yours, so dry your tears, and set about breaking a few hearts yourself! It is by far more amusing, I promise you!”

“I shouldn’t think anything could be as amusing as to be married to Damerel,” said Venetia.

“Married to him! Heavens, don’t be so gooseish! Damerel never wanted to marry anyone in all his scandalous career!”

“Oh, yes, he did, ma’am! He wanted once to marry Lady Sophia Vobster, only most fortunately she fell in love with someone else; and now he wants to marry me.”

“Deluded girl! He’s been hoaxing you!”

“Yes, he tried to hoax me into thinking he had only been trifling with me, and if it hadn’t been for my aunt’s letting the truth slip out he would have succeeded! That—that is why I’ve come to see you, ma’am! You could help me—if you would!”

“I help you?” Lady Steeple laughed, not this time so musically. “Don’t you know better than that? I could more easily ruin you, let me tell you!”

“I know you could,” said Venetia frankly. “I’m very much obliged to you for saying that, because it makes it much less awkward for me to explain it to you. You see, ma’am, Damerel believes that if he proposed marriage to me he would be doing me a great injury, because between them he and my Uncle Hendred have decided that I should otherwise make a brilliant match, while if I married him I should very likely be shunned by the ton, and become a vagabond, like himself. I should like that excessively, so what I must do is to convince him that instead of contracting a brilliant match I am on the verge of utter social ruin. I’ve racked my brains to discover how it can be done, but I couldn’t find any way—at least, none that would answer the purpose!—and I was in such flat despair—oh, in such misery! And then, last night, when my aunt told me—she thought I should be aghast, but I was overjoyed, because I saw in a flash that you were the one person who could help me!”

“To social ruin! Well, upon my word!” cried her ladyship. “And all to marry you to Rake Damerel—which I don’t believe! No, I don’t believe it!”

But when she had heard the story of that autumn idyll she did believe it. She looked oddly at her daughter, and then began to fidget with the pots on the dressing-table, arranging and rearranging them. “You and Damerel!” she said, after a long silence. “Do you imagine he would be faithful to you?”

“I don’t know,” said Venetia. “I think he will always love me. You see, we are such dear friends.”

Lady Steeple’s eyes lifted quickly, staring at Venetia. “You’re a strange girl,” she said abruptly. “You don’t know what it means, though, to be a social outcast!”

Venetia smiled. “But thanks to you and to Papa, ma’am, that’s what I have been, all my life.”

“I suppose you blame me for that, but how should I have guessed—”

“No, indeed I don’t blame you, but you will allow, ma’am, that you haven’t given me cause to be grateful to you,” Venetia said bluntly.

Lady Steeple shrugged, saying with a pettish note in her voice: “Well, I never wished for children! I told you so.”

“But I can’t believe that you wished us to be made unhappy.”

Of course I did not! But as for—”

“I am unhappy,” Venetia said, her gaze steady on that lovely, petulant countenance. “You could do a very little thing for me—such a tiny thing!—and I might be happy again, and grateful to you from the bottom of my heart!”

“It is too bad of you!” exclaimed Lady Steeple. “I might have known you would only try to cut up my peace—throw me into an irritation of nerves— What do you imagine I can do to help you?”

Sir Lambert, venturing to peep into the room half an hour later, found his daughter-in-law preparing to take her leave, and his wife in an uncertain temper, poised between laughter and vexation. He was not surprised; he had been afraid that she might find this meeting with her lovely daughter a little upsetting. Fortunately he was the bearer of tidings that were bound to raise her spirits.

“Oh, is it you, Lamb?” she called out. “Come in, and tell me how you like my daughter! I daresay you have been flirting with her already, for she is so pretty! Isn’t she? Don’t you think so?”

He knew that voice, rather higher-pitched than usual, full of brittle gaiety. He said: “Yes, that she is! Upon my soul, it’s devilish hard to tell you apart! I fancy you have the advantage, however—ay, you ain’t quite the equal of your mama, my dear—and you won’t mind my saying it, because she has perfect features, you know. Yes, yes, that was what Lawrence said, when he painted her likeness! Perfect features!”

Lady Steeple was seated at a small writing-table, but she got up, and came with a hasty step to stand beside Venetia, pulling her round to face a long looking-glass. For a minute she stared at the two mirrored faces, and then, to Venetia’s dismay, cast herself upon Sir Lambert’s burly form, crying: “She is five-and-twenty, Lamb! five-and-twenty!”

“Now, my pretty! now, now!” he responded, patting her soothingly. “Plenty of time for her to grow to be a beauty like her mama! There, now!”

She gave a hysterical little laugh, and tore herself away. “Oh, you are too absurd! Take her away! I must dress! I abominate morning callers! I look hagged!”

“Well, I can tell you that you don’t,” said Venetia, tucking a sealed letter into her reticule. “I was used to think, you know, when I was a little girl, that you were like a fairy, and so you are. I never was made to feel so clumsy in my life! I wish I knew how to walk as if I were floating!”